Scum of the Earth
by forgottensongs
Summary: Taken. Sold. Chained. Branded. No longer considered a human in the eyes of the world, marked as property to the Tenryūbito, Luffy is close to his breaking point. But the darkest of places prove to be where the greatest hopes lie. They had known freedom as well. They wanted it back. And once free? No mercy. Slave!Luffy, Slave!Crew. (Strong T for now; rating may change.)
1. Ch 1

**Ch 1 | sold**

* * *

He doesn't let them take away his hat.

He bites at the fingers who reach over him, growling at them, holding tightly to his precious possession and unwilling to let go even when he hears the telltale whistle of a slender rope coming down behind him. His grip on the straw hat only tightens as the sharp pain whips across his unprotected back. He howls and cries and screams for Ace - somebody, anybody - to help him.

No one comes - Ace left weeks ago, in search of adventure on the infinite sea - and every lash is fire on his pale skin, but Luffy doesn't let go of the hat to protect himself. He won't.

The guard gets bored and leaves him alone. Even as tears and snot run down his face, Luffy takes it as an accomplishment. These last few days have been nothing but hell. Sweat drips from his temple down to the seastone-embedded collar on his neck. For what seems like the hundredth time, he wonders why he is here. Why can't he go the place he can finally call home, back to Dadan and the bandits? What do these people want with him?

He is stripped bare and naked in the musty air of the shop, his physical body analyzed and inspected by people with strange glass bubbles over their heads. Those who didn't have the orbs are dressed like the people he remembers Sabo describing as nobles - frilly, silky cloths wrapped around their bodies and an air of arrogance following their very steps. Luffy hates them.

They look down at him, faces twisted in a mix of disgust and amusement. They ask him to twirl, run, jump, roll on the ground. He puts all his hatred into his glares as an answer to their undignified demands - he wasn't a dog - in hopes that maybe he can shoot them all down with imaginary lasers. When they don't explode into hot black ash, he curses himself for the fear that outweighs his anger, which he assumes is what causes them to scoff at his silent attempts at rebelling.

A woman doesn't look amused at his act of defiance. She tisks, then whispers to the guard who had kneeled when the group approached. The whip suddenly descends upon his feet and Luffy jumps to avoid it. The guard is relentless, forcing Luffy to dodge the attacks as best he can, aware of the appraising eyes. Now they're satisfied.

"I want it," a gruff voice says.

"As do I," says a woman.

"It is… somewhat entertaining," another muses.

"Noted," a blue-suited man with a curly mustache says, bowing in front of them.

Luffy remembers how the man had been there to receive him after he had been jumped by two of his goons, gagged, and given a weird shot that made his body go limp. Now the man hovers around the "customers" as they pass through each of his captured "specimen," deciding on their fate. Luffy concludes that he must be the owner of this strange store.

"It will be among the auctioned tomorrow," the man continues, face still towards the ground. "As a devil fruit user, it will be at a high price."

"Do you think that poses a problem?" the woman asks, the tone in her voice warning the man not to overstep his boundaries.

"N-no, of course not," the man stutters, beads of sweat forming on his head. "I was simply- uh, m-my apologies, madam."

"We shall be there tomorrow then."

They move onto another display, and Luffy is shoved back into the cage. It locks with a final click. He puts on his ripped, blood-stained clothes, hissing as the cloth brushes against his torn back, and hears the royals complaining of the heat. Some of them make their way to the door.

As they exit, a gust of the cool night air drifts in and Luffy crawls weakly to the bars to feel the breeze ruffle his hat and dry his tear-streaked face. He spies a bit of the moon and the majestic shape of the mountains' silhouette against it.

"DADAN! MAKINO!" he cries as loud as he can, his voice cracking.

He futilely hopes against all hope that someone can hear him, that the wind can carry his voice to the mountains where Dadan and all the other bandits are surely looking for him. He imagines how worried Makino must be, too. Despite the villagers' fear of the deceptively dangerous bandits, the kind woman would come to visit him and Ace, bringing them new clothes and some of her delicious bread.

The thought of them never knowing what had happened to him made the rubber boy grit his teeth, a large lump forming in his throat. He had never gotten the chance to thank them.

I'M HERE!

The door of the human shop closes with a boom.

"Shut it, twerp," a deep voice grunts out. The whip cracks against his cage, across his curled fingers, and Luffy stumbles back.

After a while, he crawls again to the bars, narrowing his eyes. By the door is a floor-to-ceiling window, where Luffy is surprised to see a man sitting in front of it, his green hair and purple suit illuminated by a flickering street lamp. The young man is gesturing wildly, seemingly talking to one of the captured women, out of her cage and chained to the stonewall to serve as an advertisement for the store. Luffy can't see her face, only her long apricot hair.

Although she's in the same situation he's in, he sort of envies her position by the window, where she can see the outside, where she can imagine tasting freedom. The young man opposite of the window barrier seems happy talking to her, even while she could not talk back.

Luffy sits back in his dark, lonely cage. He curls up in a corner, wincing at the pain in his back and clenching his hat. He misses Ace. He misses Sabo.

He doesn't know what's going on, only that he doesn't want to be here. Here, where he's fed raw bloody meat like an animal but treated like a nobody. Here, trapped in a cage and fearing the next day of torture. Here, where he is surrounded by prisoners like him, but completely and utterly alone.

Luffy tugs on his hat so that it covers his face, crying himself into a troubled sleep.

* * *

"Oi, runt! Wake up!"

Luffy shoots up, his small hands immediately flying up to his head and breathes a sigh after feeling the familiar texture of rough straw. He looks up to find the man with a whip scowling down at him. The cage is open.

He tentatively gets out of his small prison. Metal handcuffs, also embedded with seastone, suddenly clamp down on his thin wrists, then on his ankles, squeezing them tightly. A longer chain connects his cuffs with the other prisoners and their shackles. Including him, there are nine.

Luffy is next to the woman he saw last night, the one with long orange hair. This time he sees her face, and is startled by how blue her eyes are. She looks down at him and he watches as her chapped, bruised lips curve slightly up. He frowns, confused at why she is smiling in these grim circumstances.

"Stay strong, young one," she says quietly, almost mysterious. "You have a spirit they can't break."

Before Luffy can respond, they are led out into the open and he squints at the sudden bright light in the narrow alley. They walk for what seems like hours and Luffy's bare feet start to burn on the hot dirt path.

They finally reach the center of town, where the paved streets are bustling with people. No one seems to care that there are prisoners, young and old alike, handcuffed and walking amongst them. They notice, yes, but all the royals do is form a wide berth around them, going about their day as if they're used to seeing a scene like so every day. They probably are.

Luffy's not sure how, but he knows that, were he to scream for help, the nobles would do nothing to aid him or the prisoners around him. That, or his personal guard would shoot him right then and there. He had been assigned one after beating up the other men and trying to escape. Luffy doesn't see why he needs the large man watching his every move, though. He's painfully vulnerable with the tight collar around his neck, the sea-stone serving as a kryptonite to his rubber devil powers.

The line clanks through an alley and into the backdoor of a building. The smell of rotten eggs and feces viciously assaults Luffy's nose and he breathes through his mouth as they all suddenly stop behind a black wall.

They are instructed by the man with the curly mustache to go around the wall and up a set of stairs when their numbers are called. Luffy is given a number he can't remember, then the chain that binds him and the prisoners together is unshackled. The cuffs, however, stay on.

Squished in between the woman and an old, decrepit old man, Luffy can hear clapping from behind the wall, big numbers being called, and different voices shouting. One by one, the prisoners go around the wall. They don't come back.

He doesn't realize his number is called until the woman with the blue eyes nudges him. He looks at her, her soft smile, then goes around the wall to face a flight of stairs.

He can stay strong.

He climbs up the stairs and onto a lit stage, a crowd of people dressed like the ones from yesterday all facing him with demeaning stares. The blue-suited man is on a podium, speaking to the crowd, and Luffy looks at the white light that glints off some of the fish bowls around their heads. What were those for?

He then hears the owner of the shop describe him as human. Fourteen years old. Orphan. Devil fruit user. "The bidding starts at 800,000 beli!"

Bidding? Luffy stares forward as red wooden paddles with numbers raise up from the sea of nobles.

"1,000,000 beli!"

"1,500,000 beli!"

As the numbers spoken get even higher, Luffy continues to stare blankly at the crowd. He shifts under the bright spotlight, entertaining the thought of beating them all up and escaping, then burying the idea after reminding himself that he needs to live through this - whatever _this_ is. He still needs to accomplish his dream, after all. But as the amount of money climbs, his mind goes back to how hard Sabo and Ace had to work in order to get enough money for their own dreams of owning a ship, to sail away from the island. What they earned after years of stealing and scavenging didn't even compare to what these people were spitting out like it was nothing to them.

"5,000,000 beli!"

"8,000,000 beli!"

"10,000,000 beli!"

"..."

When no one else offers a higher price, the man with the mustache starts to speak again. Luffy looks for who said the last number. He zeroes in on a swirly-haired guy wearing a glass bowl around his head, thick lips in a wide, malicious smirk. Snot drips down one nostril as he yips in glee, having had no other competitor for the straw hat boy. A cold shiver runs down Luffy's back.

"Going once," the announcer starts, "going twice… SOLD! Congratulations to Sir Saint Charloss! You are now the owner of this young slave."

The applause is deafening.

* * *

 **End of Chapter 1**

* * *

 ** _So I finally learned how to use the page-breaker/horizontal line. Man, am I dumb XP._**

 ** _Chapter lengths will vary. This is obviously AU so bear with me - I'm writing this knowing only the information Oda has provided us about the Tenryuubito and slavery. That said, this will be a dark fic, and updates may be sporadic (I'll try to update at least once a week). Other than that..._**

 ** _Thoughts? Comments? Your opinion matters, so review! :)_**

Ja ne,

 **forgottensongs**


	2. Ch 2

**Ch 2 | branded**

* * *

Luffy ran.

The moment he heard that word, what the announcer called him so nonchalantly, all rational thought flew out of his head. It didn't matter that his strength was nullified by that damn seastone, or that his ever-vigilant guard was in front of the stage, watching him, his whip slick and ready. He didn't even care about the cuffs on his ankles and hands, short chain in between the limbs to restrict his movements.

All that Luffy understood was that those arrogant bastards thought that he was someone they could just label a price on, then be sold and bought like some kind of prize. Like some kind of _property_.

 _Hell no_.

To hell with them and their twisted show. They had another thing coming if they actually thought he would submit to them willingly, like the weakling they seem to think he is _._ No one was going to decide what to do with his life but himself - not even Kami Himself could have a say as far as the rubber boy was concerned. And Luffy had already decided was going to be Pirate King, ruler of the seas and the one with all the freedom in the world.

Monkey D. Luffy wasn't a _slave._ He wasn't _owned_ by anyone.

This is all he's thinking of as he propels over the stairs, straw hat flying off his head and drifting off to settle a few feet in front of him. He teeters to the side as he lands on the soles of his bare feet, in danger of losing his balance, but quickly uses the momentum to roll forward onto his knees. He bends down to bite hard on the rim of his hat then takes off. Gasps and shouts of surprise wave through the crowd and Luffy ignores them as he alternates between jogging and hopping - it's all the shackles would let him do - towards the back exit.

He doesn't get far. He trips, stumbles, and falls hard on his face, restrained hands shooting out to catch himself but doing nothing to soften the blow. Instead, he feels his wrist twist peculiarly under his stomach and bites harder on the straw, feeling it prickle his tongue. Desperate now, he lifts his head and whips it to the side, opening his mouth to let his hat whirl through the air. It disappears behind the stage and he starts to follow it, rolling sideways.

A foot lands on his arm mid-roll and the leather strikes his cheek hard, tearing the skin and drawing blood. Luffy manages to curl his head towards his chest so that the next hit lands on his matted hair, slightly buffing the blow, but not by much.

Then he's lifted by the collar on his neck and thrown back to the front of the crowd, who is murmuring in disapproval.

Luffy grunts on the floor, struggling to get up. His head is stomped back to the ground by a hard boot and its owner leans all his weight on it, twisting the boot to and fro, digging his dirtied face further into the marble.

Normally, this would have little to no effect on him, but with his rubber ability subdued, he could feel blood start to seep from his forehead as the tiles crack from the constant pressure. The foot pushes off his head and lands next to its counterpart. Luffy turns his head slightly to glare at the man. Once they lock eyes, Saint Charloss sneers, then kicks the boy in the jaw.

"Slaves should never make eye contact with their masters," the snot-nosed man spits out. Already Luffy wants to beat this guy's ass. He can't stop his mouth from voicing his honest thoughts.

"I'll kick your ass," he states, spitting out blood, fully aware that he can't do anything, but still wanting to do _something_. Right now, he's literally only all talk with the sea stones inhibiting his actions.

A gun cocks above him and Luffy can feel the cold metal pushing against the back of his head. "I should kill you right here."

"Brother-su," a woman's voice interrupts, sounding annoyed. "If you kill every pet we get, we'll never get to have fun-su."

"Shut up, Shalulia! No one gets away with disrespecting me, especially not this gross human."

There's a silence, then suddenly the announcer's voice is booming in the speakers again. "Next up, we have number 2378…"

A hand lifts Luffy up by the hair and he's face to face with a lady with the same weird curl at the top of her head like her brother but with brown bangs. She also wears a shiny glass barrier around her head. Luffy glowers at her.

"Who're you?" he growls. She slaps him hard, so suddenly that Luffy blinks a few times, then feels a gloved palm caress the forming red mark on his cheek.

"This one seems interesting-su," the woman muses, licking her lips.

Behind her, the announcer describes the next prisoner to the eager crowd, their attention now focused on the person on stage. A glance towards the platform tells Luffy that it's the lady with orange hair that's their next victim. Her eyes flicker to him worriedly, but her bruised face stays blank. There is a small but noticeable bump on her belly that wasn't there before.

Saint Shalulia grips his hair harder and his eyes shoot daggers that would break that stupid fish bowl sitting on her shoulders. She gives him a condescending look while addressing her brother. "It can learn how to behave like the lowly filth it is, soon, brother. We'll teach it."

Luffy narrows his eyes. Are they blind or stupid? He's not an 'it,' he's a person. Who do they think they are?

The woman's words seem to calm Charloss down, but a sinister grin takes place on his ugly face. He slaps his sister's hand away and Luffy falls back to the ground. "It's mine. _I_ bought it. So I'll teach this filth..."

Charloss snaps his fingers and a man with a suit and sunglasses comes to his side. Without a word, the henchman brings out a syringe filled with a dark liquid. He punctures it into Luffy's arm before the boy can act.

Luffy struggles to keep his eyes open, gritting his teeth, but darkness converges on the corners of his vision. Charloss's smirk is the last thing he sees as his body succumbs to the sedative. Still, he hears the last of the bastard's words before falling unconscious.

"... who his owner really is."

* * *

He wakes up breathless, a foot lodged in his stomach. Luffy pushes the foot forcefully away and coughs hard, taking in deep breaths, his vision swimming. He quickly observes his new surroundings, but can only gather that he's in a small room. His only escape route is a single barred door, a huge padlock in place of the doorknob. There are no windows, but two lanterns on the wall give him enough light to see the new steel cuffs on his hands. He tries to sit up but finds that the heavy restraints are now connected to the metal floor.

He pulls at them futilely before realizing that all his limbs are chained in a way that he can't even stand up. His shirt is missing as well, the healing wounds on his back exposed. Despite the heat of the room, a cold chill crawls along his spine to grip onto his throat tightly. His audience starts to snicker a few feet in front of him.

"How pathetic," Saint Charloss comments with uncontained glee.

His sister agrees, cocking her head to the side. "I wonder-su if it'll last as long as the others ones-su."

"Does it matter, sister?" He gestures to a bulky man with tattered clothes standing in the shadows. "Make it as slow as possible," he instructs his other slave.

Luffy tries to turn around to see who he's speaking to, then widens his eyes when he catches a glimpse of the glowing metal held in a thin hand. He pulls at his chains with a new vigor and something like desperation rises in his eyes.

"Wait! What're you going to do?" he demands.

Shalulia coos.

Charloss walks up to Luffy, a gloved hand shoving the defenseless boy's head down to the ground. Luffy, sick of being put down all the time, turns his head against the hand to bite down hard on the man's fat fingers, his teeth going through the glove and tasting blood. Charloss pulls his hand away and Luffy's teeth take his glove with him. He spits out the cloth and watches as the man rolls on the ground.

"Itaiiii! Ow, ow, ow!" His snotty nose runs even more and tears build up in the man's eyes as he clutches his bleeding fingers. He looks at Luffy with pure disdain. The rubber boy glares back with defiance.

Charloss stands up quickly to push away the man behind Luffy, snatching the hot branding iron away from his slave. He wields the stick up and marvels its glowing symbol, still steaming. He looks down at Luffy's pale back and smirks. He would swipe that rebellious look right off his face.

"Learn your place."

The steaming iron slams down onto his back and Luffy lasts a millisecond before a scream rips out of his throat. It feels like the very sun has landed on his back. He hears the hiss of steam as the hot metal melts into his skin and the smell of charred tissue fills the room, fills his nostrils and he can't think, can't breathe, can only feel _pain_. Nothing compares. He howls, salty tears overflowing in his eyes before cascading down his cheeks because it _burns_ , it does, and he bawls in both rage and agony.

The scorching, unbearable sensation has him bending his body forward in a reflex to get away, but Charloss cruelly grabs his head with one hand and slams it down in a motion that Luffy is absolutely sick of, his other ungloved hand delving the burning iron further into his back. Luffy's vision blurs, black spots dance in front of him, and he's clenching his eyes shut and sobbing, slamming his hands on the ground and scraping his nails on the metal, feet scrambling to gain footage but restrained by the weight of the terrible, terrible Saint Charloss all but _cackling_ at his expense. Luffy wants it to be over, tries to block the pain by imagining he's back on the mountains, Ace still there and Sabo not dead and it almost works until they abruptly disappear, they leave him all alone and the pain in his back burning burning burning. He cries out even louder, throat raw, hips bucking feebly, panting, gasping, air, where's the air? And he's choking on nothing, stomach caving, limbs trembling until he collapses on the cold ground.

Then, thankfully - blissfully - he surrenders to the peaceful darkness.

* * *

 **End of Chapter 2**

* * *

 ** _Have you guys figured out who the orange-haired woman is? Did you figure it out from the first chapter? She's not really canon and had a really short screen time but I liked her for some reason._**

 ** _Next update will be on_** Dear Captain, My Captain ** _(I swear I don't know how I'm juggling all these stories, I think I'm a masochist at heart XP)._**

 ** _Comments or thoughts appreciated for this chapter :)_**

Ja ne,

 **forgottensongs**


	3. Ch 3

**Ch 3 | imprisoned**

* * *

He jolts awake, the intermittent pain once again bringing him back to consciousness.

He's lying prone on a different floor - wooden instead of steel - with his freshly marked back open to the stale air. The effort it takes to move his head to one side leaves him panting, rivulets of sweat trailing down from his matted hair to land on his eyelashes. His mouth feels drier than the desert, tongue like sandpaper as he runs it over his cracked lips.

Luffy blinks hard to clear his vision. Through the haze of exhaustion, he can make out the long vertical bars of his cell - surely embedded with sea stone. His eyes tiredly roam the small space, looking to see if he had missed something the other times he had been awake. His periods of consciousness were short, and he wasn't sure how much time had passed in between them.

His thoughts are sluggish. Is he… moving? With one ear on the floor, he can hear the creaking of floorboards and the unmistakable murmur of swelling waves.

It hits him like one of jii-chan's punches - he's on a ship.

Then the woman with the golden hair is there. Her cheek presses against the wood, facing him, long strands of hair falling in between her blue eyes. Luffy squints, watching her puffed lips move, but he can't make out what she's saying. She's whispering too softly. There's a nasty cut just above her right eye, still bleeding.

It's all he can take in before she shoves something rough and fuzzy into his mouth. Not food.

He tries to spit it out, only for it to be firmly pushed back in. All he can see now is her torn dress and blackened knees. Then the pain comes.

It's noticeably less than the initial burn he had suffered through, but it's enough to bring unshed tears to his bloodshot eyes. The woman's soft voice murmurs above him - he can hear her now - a broken record of hollow words, "You'll be okay, you'll be okay..."

The cool sensation of water is soothing and covers the persistent heat emanating on his back. It slithers into the newly engraved grooves of his skin and slips down his prominent ribcage. Then something thin and wet spreads out onto his wound. He can feel tentative fingers prodding the material, patting it into a skin that is still too tender. Luffy's groan is muffled by the cloth stuffed in his mouth.

The woman breaks her low mantra to lean down and whisper in his ear, "Please. I know it hurts, but you must be silent."

Luffy breathes hard, in and out, nostrils flaring, jaw clenching at the thin cloth between his teeth.

 _Or what?_ he thinks bitterly. Were the fish bowl bastards going to come in here to shut him up for good? Didn't they enjoy this kind of sick torture?

But as he feels a warm wetness slip down his nose, a strange sense of disappointment grows in him. All this crybaby stuff was supposed to be in the past. He was supposed to be stronger. He was supposed to train more in the mountains before going out on his own, to find new friends and have great adventures.

He was never supposed to be captured, imprisoned, and then _branded._

Ace's voice is suddenly right beside him. _Crying won't get us anywhere. What are you going to do about this, Lu?_

Luffy spots the loose cuffs around the woman's ankles. Though he can't feel it, he's sure that he's shackled as well. He's trapped here, starving, with zero strength left.

 _I don't know. I don't know, Ace. Help me._

The ship groans beneath his head.

 _So there's been a little change in plans,_ Ace reflects, and Luffy imagines his face crinkling in thought. _We've hit a reef, so to speak, and there's going to be some damage._

Something peels off Luffy's back, exposing the heated skin to the air again. The woman shifts around before plunking a bucket beside her. There's a wet squelching sound from above before a small stream of bright red water splashes into the bucket. It's his blood, Luffy realizes, mixed with water.

He grunts _. Yeah. There's some damage._

He feels a ghost of a hand plop down on his head and Ace's voice comes out really soft. _And you're probably feeling scared._

He can't move without it being painful. He doesn't have a clue of where he is, of where they're taking him.

 _Really scared, Ace._

 _And that's okay,_ his older brother reassures. _But don't let fear overpower you. Don't panic. It'll let them get to you. You remember Bluejam? You were really brave against him, and you never gave in. You gotta do that now, Luffy._

Luffy squeezes his eyes shut tightly, more tears sliding down the bridge of his nose to plop on the floor, the wood quickly absorbing them.

 _But Ace..._

 _Hang in there, Lu._

And then he's gone, never having been there in the first place.

* * *

There shouldn't have been that much blood. Especially after three days.

Stella scowls, watching the boy sleep on the poor excuse of a pillow she had fashioned out of the poorer excuse of a dress, reduced to rags now. He was not the youngest she had seen, but the most defiant by far.

She allows herself an amused smile. Three days ago, she almost couldn't believe her eyes when she witnessed his desperate attempt to escape - outnumbered, impaired, and with all the odds imaginable against him. She secretly rooted for him even while knowing how slim his chance was.

She had a feeling about him from the moment she laid eyes on him, kicking and screaming and biting at his kidnappers - a young force to be reckoned with, sedated again in order to be handled. Other captured kids usually came in scared and complacent, doing anything the shop owner asked, before crying for their parents, their big brother or sister…

This kid had demanded they release him, or he'd 'kick all their asses'.

Despite his devil-may-care attitude, however, he was still a child - fourteen years young if she heard the auction announcer right. Stella had heard his sniffles in the dark and he had screamed out some names - undoubtedly of people who were looking for him - that final night in the Human Shop. The guards had no pity towards him in their assaults, and she had winced every time he was hit, feeling as if the whip had stricken her instead.

She had felt the inexplicable compulsion to encourage him that next day, telling him to stay strong - she knew he would need that spirit to survive in here.

Her eyes land on the angry red skin on the boy's back. The depth of the burns suggest that the scolding hot iron had been pushed with unnecessary force and held down for a long time. Stella feels her insides coil with a new disgust for the Tenryuubito, who never fail to stoop to a new low.

The boy suddenly whimpers in his sleep and her heart goes out to him. She can only imagine his pain. It takes months for branded skin to fully heal and that was only with a salve.

She assumed the boy had done something to spite his master, because the guards only provided him a bucket full of somebody else's stinky urine to soothe his burn and none of the miracle ointment. Stella had thrown the pee away but kept the bucket, using her day's worth of her water to clean the pail, and her next day's worth to clean his wound.

She watches him squirm in his sleep, and a dangerous anger rises from her throat. Stella swallows it down before it can claw its way out - it would do her no good. She had already gotten beat for cursing at the guards when they refused to give the boy proper treatment.

Under her vigil, he's drifted in and out of consciousness for the three days they've been at sea. She wonders what his name is, and what kind of those "devil fruits" he's eaten. She's sure the "special" handcuffs they've attached to him is only inhibiting his body to heal itself.

His pale form starts to tremble and so does her hands, clenched on her lap. She's no doctor, but she knows the signs - having seen them on countless others and them all ending the same way.

If nothing is done, he could die from an (easily preventable) infection.

She digs her blunt nails into her hands so hard that it draws blood.

But something _can_ be done.

Stella rips her eyes away from the shaking body before standing up, ignoring the way her head throbs - like a sledgehammer pounding against her brain - and grabbing the bucket's handle, bloodied water sloshing inside. For a moment, her eye is blinded by the blood from the open cut above it that drips onto her eyelash. She wipes it away angrily.

Something can be done, but at an ugly cost.

The chains binding her to the wall jingle as she shuffles towards the door of her cell, heart pounding in her chest as she throws the bloodied water through the bars.

For their own reasons, the Tenryuubito stayed away from the slave cells on the ship, though if Stella had to guess it was _probably_ because they didn't like to mingle amongst dead rats and the ever-present pungent smell of feces - both human and rodent.

So they stationed guards in their place, to keep watch over the slaves and treat them however they should like. Though the guards held no authority when in the presence of the commanding Celestial Dragons, down here, where no one cared about beings that were considered less than human, it was free game. No slave was safe.

Stella thinks bitterly about this as she stares at the bars of her prison, eyes blank, still as a statue. The handle of the bucket swings lightly from her fingers.

 _I survived it before. I can do it again._

It doesn't stop the tears from flowing down her face.

She runs a trembling hand through her dirty hair. A smiling man with green hair and kind eyes flash into her mind. She rolls her head up to stare at the wooden ceiling, and gulps down the lump lodged in her throat, sniffling hard, feeling sick to her stomach. She turns to look at the boy again, a boy she doesn't even know the name of.

Is he truly worth it?

She steps back to swing her arm forward and the bucket slams into the bars. The violent shock jars her to the bone but she ignores it and runs to one side of her cell.

She drags the empty metal bucket through the bars - _clang! clang! clang!_ \- so that every guard could hear it.

She's not ready, she'll never be. But for the boy's sake…

 _Clang! Clang! Clang!_

It's surprisingly loud and frightening and for a minute she gets carried away in its haunting sound.

 _Clang! Clang! Clang!_

She runs from wall to wall now, chains dragging on the floor, arm extended to clatter the bucket hard across the metal rods like a musical instrument - a xylophone, she thinks wistfully - bare feet padding quickly across wood. The monotonous sound reverberates through the darkness of the deck, dull but loud, penetrating her very soul. Tears stream faster down her flushed face now because the bucket's banging, the chains jingling, bars clanging - it's the only music she's heard in _years._

She bangs the bucket as hard as she can, in hopes now that it can be _deafening_. Maybe, if it's loud enough, thunderous enough, then the whole sea on the outside of these thick walls can hear it. Maybe then - _maybe, maybe_ \- the whole world could hear their pain, their tireless screams for help -

 _Help us please! We are here!_

 _Clang!Clang!Clang!_

 _Help us please! We are here!_

Then the guard is there, opening her cell, taking out his whip.

It comes down, but not towards her. She doesn't think, doesn't hesitate.

Stella throws the bucket at the guard's face and dives to cover the boy who had not woken up even with all her noise-making.

The whip descends on her back and her short-lived fantasy shrivels up as she is jerked back to reality. No one is going to help them. She can barely help herself.

She looks down at the boy she's protecting. She can only help him now.

The whipping abruptly stops and the chill of air on her back tells her why. His whip has cut straight through her rags of a dress. Stella turns around quickly to hide what's already been seen.

She is suddenly aware of how vulnerable she is, and a cold shiver crawls up her freshly sliced spine as leering eyes rake through her body.

The guard's voice is deep with lust. "You're not usually one to cause trouble, now, are you?"

Slaves aren't allowed to ask guards for any favors, but she is desperate.

She gestures to the boy. "Help him. Please. We can make an exchange. Th-the salve..."

He towers over her. "For you?"

Her lips are already forming the word 'no' before she stops herself. "O-only… only if… you help him," she rasps out.

Her stomach plummets at his smirk. "All for the brat, huh? Alright, then. You won't be thinking of him once I'm through with you, anyways."

His grimy hands are already reaching for her when she backs away, chest heaving, eyes tearing up. "F-first, the s-salve."

She is in no position to be demanding of anything, but for what she is about to be subjected to, nothing seems as daunting.

He glares at her and she has the fleeting though that he'll just disregard what she's said and have his way like many of the corrupt guards do, but then he grunts before leaving the cell, locking it behind him again.

He comes back ten minutes later, the prize in hand, and she swipes the round container from his fingers to apply a generous amount to the boy's back. Not a minute later, he begins to relax. His whimpering stops and he even starts to softly snore.

Stella sits back on her heels to look at him. Her eyes soften. Like this, one could never guess he could make so much trouble - he looked so small and peaceful. So innocent.

She bends down, aware of the eyes to her bare backside, to give him a kiss on the cheek, pulls back just a bit as a single teardrop escapes one of her closed eyes and lands on his temple.

The hand on her shoulder is heavy.

The guard starts to push away the loose sleeve but she slaps his hand away.

He growls, "We had a deal-"

She pulls her sleeve back on, standing up. Her steady voice doesn't betray the shame and disgust she feels inside. "Not here."

The smirk that spreads across his face makes her want to vomit. "Of course. I know the _perfect_ place."

He pulls out a ring of keys and unlocks her ankle cuffs. With a rough hand on the small of her back, the guard guides her out of the cell. She can feel the stares - some of pity, some of disgust - of the other slaves in their cells, and throws them a wavering smile. She looks back once more at the small, lonely shape on the wooden floor of the slave ship.

Then she lets the guard take her away.

* * *

They took his swords.

He realizes this when he instinctively reaches for Wado Ichimonji but find his fingers grasping at air. He's not exactly powerless without them, but against two of the weird-looking men with their own glinting weapons, he's at a heavy disadvantage.

What an annoying way to wake up from his nap.

His eyes dart between his opponents, noting that the guy resembling a very ugly goldfish also has a brown sack in one hand The other burly guy has his swords, still in their sheaths, strapped onto a pair of swim briefs.

"Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro," the guy holding his swords calls. "You've already started making a name for yourself, and so young, too. Stumbling past you was a blessing - we're sure there's a high price on the market for someone of your caliber."

Oh? This is the first he's heard of this. Although, all praising aside, 'Pirate Hunter' is a bit specific. He just got the guys that were stupid enough to fight and were worth enough belli for his next meal.

Goldfish guy steps forward. "You can either come quietly or we'll take you by force."

Zoro sighs loudly. He had known he was being followed, but didn't think his pursuers were going to cause him so much trouble. If only he knew how to get out of these woods...

"Oi, I have somewhere I need to be. Give me my swords back, and maybe I won't slice you fish-looking bastards into a nice sushi."

"Big talk for someone without his weapons, Roronoa," the goldfish man sneers, then suddenly raises his voice. "I'll take it you wanna do this the hard way, then."

A smirk takes form on the green-haired swordsman's lips. He lowers himself into an offensive stance. "Ready when you guys- ngh!"

Zoro's eyes widen as he collapses onto his knees before landing face-down onto the dirt, holding his neck. His fist closes around the blunt end of the tranquilizer and yanks it out, too late. The vein pulses, carrying the opiate into his bloodstream. He struggles to keep his head up, gritting his teeth.

"You... dirty... bastards," he grunts out. His eyes start to droop.

"We don't like the hard way," a new voice announces, snickering.

Through quickly fading vision, he can make out a third weirdo with an unusually large jaw emerging from the bushes. "Cover his head already, Gyaro."

Webbed hands, carrying the sack, come towards him. Zoro drops his head back onto the ground, unable to hold it up anymore.

He feels the cloth wrap around his head. Darkness.

A moment later, he's roughly hoisted up onto one of their shoulders. They're arguing about something but he can't make it out - he's too damn tired.

Then he goes limp, falling into a deep sleep.

* * *

 **End of Chapter 3**

* * *

 _ **Sorry for the wait, guys! I have no excuse, cuz I had time to write**_ **another** _ **story the other day. But to make it up, I am determined to post another chapter this week. I already have half of it done :))))**_

 _ **Also, a huge thank you to all that have reviewed, favorited, followed (etc.) this story. Each and every one of you motivate me to continue writing (even more than I do). Virtual hugs & kisses for you all! **_

xoxo,

 **forgottensongs**


	4. Ch 4

**Ch 4 | fooled**

His goat bleats, the only warning he receives before the air in the room turns significantly cooler.

Sengoku looks up just as a newspaper slaps down onto his desk, subsequently covering one of the many tedious reports he had been reading from the fleets stationed in the Grand Line. He takes one glance at the message blown up on the front page before setting his quill down and reclining in his chair.

The navy blue den den mushi on his desk suddenly crackles to life.

 _Purupurupurupuru_ … _purupurupu- kacha_.

He raises the receiver to his mouth. "What's the problem?"

"S-Sengoku-sama? Admiral Aokiji is coming up to meet with you. He says it's urgent…?"

The Fleet Admiral looks at the said person's demeanor opposite him, tall form lazily leaning against the wall with both hands in his pockets. Though his posture indicates purposeful nonchalance, Sengoku's sharp eyes note the tense jaw and small wrinkle between the eyes of the normally cool Admiral.

"Alright, I'll see to it. Thank you."

Sengoku puts down the snail shell, eyebrow twitching. What was the point of an assistant if she couldn't warn him about these things early? And he really should do something about that goat - it kept eating all of the newspapers. He had wanted to avoid this coming confrontation as long as possible, though he knew it was only a matter of time.

Still, the Gorosei had been conspicuously quick to relay the news to the whole world.

"It appears justice has been served without our intervention," he finally comments, stroking his long beard while watching his subordinate closely. "But you don't look so happy about it… Kuzan."

Aokiji's eyes stay closed as he speaks.

"Ne… Sengoku, you know, my motto as a marine is 'total slovenly justice.' Even if others tend to disagree with the way I handle things..." he yawns, the picture of indifference, "as long as justice is served and the greater good is benefited, I've done my job. So, you understand, I don't usually question the way certain situations are resolved. Ahh, I believe every individual's sense of justice is different."

Sengoku nods, waiting.

"But," Aokiji's lax voice carries a hint of icy steel as he opens his dark eyes to stare directly at the Fleet Admiral, tone reprimanding, "I wonder now, Sengoku, just how far the 'people up there' will go in order to cover up the truth, then claim their actions are justified."

Sengoku grunts.

"Tread lightly, Kuzan," he warns. "Correct me if I was misinformed, but it was your actions during that Incident that have led to the mess that we're trying now, two decades later, to clean up-"

"Ara, ara, you're going off topic now," Aokiji drawls, sticking a pinky in his ear. "If I came here to talk about that, I'd bring up what that fool Akainu did at the time."

Sengoku pauses. "So what do you want?"

The lanky man stares at the ball of golden wax on his finger before flicking it away. It lands by a lone bonsai tree, its crown pruned and branching leaves flourishing. "Nico Robin."

The uttered name brings the temperature of the room up ten degrees, the air thick and tense between two of the Navy's most powerful assets, not unlike the atmosphere before a battle.

"Where is she? Really," Aokiji interrogates.

When Sengoku stays silent, he continues.

"I've kept her in check, you know. She's laid low for almost 20 years now. Two days ago, she infiltrated an organization known as Baroque Works in Alabasta before falling off the map. Even if she was killed, her body wouldn't have made it very far."

He makes a vague gesture to the newspaper. Sengoku looks down at it again, the blatant bold letters reading:

 **DEVIL CHILD DECEASED!**

 ** _World can breathe sigh of relief!_**

A gray and black picture of a woman with shoulder-length dark hair and cropped bangs, lying awkwardly on what appears to be a snow-covered coast, almond-shaped eyes still open in surprise and blood spurting from her slit throat, is shown at the bottom.

The article continues to excitedly announce how the government has confirmed it is her, the credit given to one of their Navy captains, already given praise and reward for 'acting per protocol and ensuring the target was captured' as she attempted to flee one of the islands.

The Devil Child - Nico Robin - the World Government's biggest threat, a curse borne to the world, was dead.

Or so it was believed.

Aokiji pushes his back from the wall to face the Fleet Admiral directly, stepping forward to his desk. This was all business.

"So who was it that they really found… Sengoku… floating in North Blue's sea?"

* * *

Luffy knows he's not the exactly the brightest light on the harbor at times, but unusually sharp intuition made it certain he never missed the important details concerning people, as well-hidden as they may seem to be.

He can't pinpoint what it is exactly, but when the woman comes back into the cell, limping, with new gray rags, dark purple bruises lining her arms and hair much more disheveled, a shrill alarm starts ringing in his head.

The guard's eyes linger a little too long before he walks away.

And when Luffy meets the lady's eyes, her smile is a little less vibrant, her icy blue eyes a little more dull. Her whole being seems to have... faded - he finds the word - like a dimmed light bulb that's been left on for too long, lackluster until, eventually, it snuffs itself out.

She sits gingerly on the cold wood in front of him, wincing as she folds her chained legs under her.

Something happened to her. Something bad.

He had woken up hours ago to an empty cell and his back feeling loads better - a strange burning but cooling sensation on it, carrying a slightly minty scent. A container half-filled with a white cream had been beside him. He was amazed to find he could sit up with minimal pain. It took a lot of effort, but it was a tremendous leap from his original state. Somehow, he figured, his cellmate had gotten him treatment while he was unconscious.

But, as he observes her now, he wonders just what exactly she had to sacrifice in order to help him. He wants to ask, but something in the way she looks back at him - almost pleading - stops him.

Instead, he fists his hands on his lap and lowers his head, almost trembling with overwhelming gratitude. "Arigato… Thank you so much for helping me. I feel much better."

When he looks up, her smile is bigger, more genuine. "I'm glad."

Large tears suddenly gather in her eyes, reflecting against the blue of her irises like skies over lakes. "I'm so glad," she repeats, voice hoarse, futilely wiping at the salty drops.

Luffy can only stare as she tries to compose herself and a new burn forms deep in his chest, a raging hot fury towards whoever did this lady - who had done nothing but show him, a stranger, unconditional kindness from their first meeting - harm. He doesn't need to know the details. She was hurt, and that's enough.

"Listen," he growls. "Once I'm better, I'll get 'im. I'll beat him and kick any other asshole that hurt ya back into the stupid hole they-"

He's baffled when she starts to giggle. Small and in between sniffles at first, before she busts out laughing. It's gaspy and cheery and pitches weirdly - high to low to high again - like she can't decide how to laugh because she's almost forgotten how. She covers her mouth to muffle its sound, loud as it was, she doesn't want another guard coming, and Luffy considerably relaxes, letting out his own chuckle though he's clueless on what's so funny.

Her giggles subside after a while and she wipes her eyes. It's still shimmery but with something other than tears. "Ne, what's your name?"

He grins. "I'm Luffy. Monkey D. Luffy."

"Luffy," she echoes, trying it on her tongue. "Lu-ffy."

"Mm," he nods. "What's yours, lady?"

She mirrors his grin. "Stella."

"Shteela?" He tries. "Weird name."

"No," she giggles again. "Ste-lla."

"Oh," he says, scratching his head.

His eyes suddenly widen. His head turns side to side frantically, dark orbs searching. Before she can protest, he's already standing, unsteady on his chained feet, panting heavily, but still forcing himself to stumble forward.

Stella jumps to her feet, hands out to catch him in case he falls. "Luffy-kun, you shouldn't be getting up."

Beads of sweat form on his forehead. He looks at her, eyes truly desperate.

"My hat," he manages to pant out. "Where's my hat? Where- What'd they do with it?"

Stella puts her hands on his shoulders, gently urging him to sit back down. "Luffy-kun, please."

He looks like he wants to argue but his knees buckle and Stella helps him slowly to the ground. When she's sure he won't get up and further hurt himself, she lifts a hand to her forehead, and sighs, shaking her head in slight disbelief.

"You're on a slave ship, Luffy-kun," she says, her lips twitching upwards as Luffy continues to swivel his head around their small cell. "And the first thing you're worried about is a hat?"

He finally looks at her, eyes as hard as black stone, voice rough. "It's my treasure. I need to find it."

"Treasure?" Stella murmurs.

"Yeah," Luffy grunts as he tries to stand up again.

"Wait," she says, hands flying to hold him down.

"What?" Luffy asks, annoyed now and pushing her hands away.

"I have it!" she cries out. She gasps and puts a hand to her mouth again, and Luffy stops struggling as she lowers her voice. "I have it."

"You have it?" he repeats, before the meaning registers in his head and a large grin splits his face. "Well, why didn't you say so? Where is it?"

She looks away from his eager, expectant eyes. "W-well, I don't have it with me right now," she admits. "I had to hide it before they could take it away. It's on the main deck, two floors above us, but it's safe."

She meets his disappointed gaze. "I promise."

Luffy pouts before nodding slowly. "Alright. If you say so."

Stella smiles tiredly. "I knew it was important to you. That day, during the auction, you could've left it behind as you tried to escape… but you didn't."

She leans back on the wall, hugging her knees to her chest. "Actually, you made sure it got away before you did. I thought then, 'That hat must be really special.' It rolled behind the stage and I hid it under my dress."

"But after I was put on the ship, the Tenryuubito announced surprise body inspections - really just an excuse to grope women," she adds, low voice laced with loathing, "and I managed to sneak it behind the tanks, under a tarp. No one checks there and it's relatively safe from the weather, I think."

Luffy blinks, a slight frown crinkling his forehead. "You're awfully nice, lady. You did all that without even knowing me."

"I didn't have to," she replies softly. "Somehow, Luffy-kun, I know you're a good person. You fight for those who can't."

She tilts her head back to gaze at the ceiling, eyes glazed with a thousand regrets. "Those who have long given up."

* * *

It's ironic, she thinks. This whole damn situation.

Or, when she really thinks about it - analyzes it from the moment she was born until now, _here_ , on this stage - her life in general was just a huge, sadistic joke. A big, fat, slap on thd knee, ' _ha_ - _ha_ ' to her face, because ' _really? you really thought you could do it?'_

All she had to wait for was the punchline.

The air is permeated with a smelly mixture of sweat and silver and she stands numbly, eyes transfixed on virtually nothing as three wealthy, spoiled, never-have-to-wear-the-same-clothes-twice assholes heatedly raise their offers to the announcer.

"Two million!"

"Five million!"

"Eight million!"

Her whole life, she's wished to be born into a rich family, fantasized about the cutest outfits she'd wear instead of those secondhand disasters Bellemere had insisted were even more stylish than what Nojiko had worn and worn out (like her adoptive mother could possibly convince her intelligent, adoptive daughter that what used to be sunflower was now a roaring lion - she had been kidding herself). Bellemere was terrible at stitching, and Nami remembers how her long, rough fingers were always scarred with tiny little cuts from nights of work.

Her naive self had once dreamed of having so much food to eat, they'd have enough to feed all the villagers until all their stomachs bulged out of their pants. And there'd be a variety of foods to eat, too, not just that of mikan pie, or mikan pudding or whatever the like. They'd live in this huge mansion, and they'd each have their own rooms, and a huge backyard for all of Bellemere's mikans...

But most of all. Most of all, they'd have enough money, enough gold and silver and belli, to send away that terrible monster and his horrible friends that had decided - because they were pirates, and pirates did what they wanted - to invade and pillage and take control of their small village, their home…

Nami bites her lip, the intense flash of memory serving to only sting her eyes. She swallows hard. The bickering voices fade into the background.

"Ten!

"Fourteen!"

Bellemere was dead now -

 _Nojiko, Nami! … I love you_

\- buried six feet under a spinning wheel, her sacrifice only serving to buy her daughters and the village more time. But it didn't work.

Nami closes her eyes, fists her hands under the ragged hem of her dress.

It didn't work because they were dealing with pirates, ones from the depths of the ocean and ten times stronger than humans, ten times more arrogant, and greedy, greedy, greedy. So when killing her mother didn't work, they wanted Nami's extraordinary navigation skills and -

 _No more killing! Please! Please! No more dying!_

\- Nami followed her _mother's_ (because, in her heart, no matter what she had said in that burst of spoiled anger, she had never really considered Bellemere, biological or not, anything less) footsteps and sacrificed herself. Or more specifically, she sacrificed her freedom.

She might as well have been better off dead.

"Seventeen!"

"Twenty!"

Arlong didn't ask for much, but that was only because what he did ask was near impossible to achieve.

One hundred million belli. That was the deal. Then the village would be free. And in that time, she would work for him, was owned by him if the tattoo on her arm had anything to say in the matter.

It's been six years since then.

Six years of countless trips into the tumultuous seas and sustaining injuries from being too slow, too inexperienced of a thief.

Seventy-two months of close calls with vicious gangs and vengeful victims, getting caught red-handed in unsuccessful raids before learning to be quicker, stealthier, a self-taught deceiver because if she was caught, who would save the village?

Two thousand, one hundred and eighty-nine days under the menacing rule of Arlong, forced to use her skills not for her dream, but to help the fish tyrant that killed her mother, all while labeled a betrayer by the very village she was trying to save, and only occasionally finding comfort in the company of her sister.

Her suffering, however, had paid off well - she's gained 76 million in those six years, the hauls having gotten bigger as the years dragged on, her experience both a benefit and a curse. But that's where her tiny piece of luck had stopped.

It only took one mistake. She had been too proud of her skills, too reckless, and chose the wrong man to swindle. She had been caught, but instead of turning her in, he had sold her to some shady men, who had then chained her for days somewhere underground on this unfamiliar island.

Now, she finds herself here, on this hot stage, getting passed from one life of slavery to another.

Could you blame her for being so cynical?

"Twenty-four million!"

"Going once…"

"...Bah! Take 'er!"

"Going twice…"

"Hmph!"

" _Sold_! For _twen-ty-four mil-lion_ _dollars_ , Saint Mjorsgard has claimed..." The announcer's enunciated declaration fades over the roar of applause, the crowd pleased an owner had finally won.

Nami finally opens her eyes, and, without a sound escaping her lips, cries for all that she's worth, from the bottom of her tearing heart, tears flowing down her cheeks, snot accumulating on her upper lip.

Because that was it. The long-awaited punchline.

The greatest irony of all: the very amount she needs to free her village - and, she had hoped against hope, herself - is exactly what she's being sold for.

Nami almost wishes she had realized her real worth earlier, so that she could have sold herself and gotten the money sent to Nojiko, and so that perhaps, this heavy weight of failure she feels settling on her chest, that makes it so hard to _breathe_ , wouldn't be as overwhelming.

Later, as she mounts the docked ship with the other owned slaves, she smiles something bitter and broken. She thinks,

 _In the end, all you need is money_.

She enjoys the light breeze streaming through her orange strands and knows it will be a very long time before she feels the sun on her face again so shs savors its warm rays, breathes the scent of the salty sea in.

She looks toward the horizon, with seemingly no end and no beginning, and wonders now how much it would cost to buy her own freedom.

* * *

It's never silent for long, Stella realizes, when you're with a person like Luffy.

Even when his mouth isn't moving, his body still thrums with an excitable energy, and she imagines small sparks of firework contained in his bouncing being. For now, he's sitting, but she can tell all he wants to do is run around, find a way out, his condition the only thing keeping him tame.

Being in an enclosed space like this must be torture.

A loud, ominous growl suddenly echoes around the cell and Stella almost jumps out of her skin. Her eyes are wide as she looks toward the source.

Luffy holds his caving stomach, cheeks dramatically sunken in as he moans above another roar of hunger from his starved body. He looks up at Stella, a little sheepish.

"You don't have any meat lying around by any chance, do ya?" he asks weakly.

She shakes her head slowly. "Gomen, Luffy-kun. They give us rations once a day, and mostly just bread and cheese. While you were out, they didn't see it fit to feed you. But the food should be coming later today. Could you wait a while?"

"Guhh," he groans, falling forwards to the ground, breathing heavily. Stella leans over him, worry etched into a frown. She examines his pallor - severely dehydrated and undernourished.

"Not… for long," Luffy pants out as an answer, energy depleting quickly. His eyes flutter close, before he forces them open.

"B-but… I can… make it. I can make it."

He sucks in a large breath, slowly exhaling, eyes set in determination. "Yeah."

"Okay, Luffy-kun. Okay. I'll be right here," Stella assures anxiously, like that'll help curb his slow starvation.

Except for the soft rhythm of persistent waves and the occasional deep growl of the boy's stomach, it's relatively quiet.

With nothing else to do, Stella tilts her head and strains her ears. She can hear the running water two decks above or the stamping of feet as laborers perform tasks for the Tenryuubito on the ship. With their senses limited and inhibited, Stella's learned that just listening can go a long way into knowing anything that could be of value - from the coming danger of a guard's telltale footsteps to the general location of the ship's whereabouts. This time, she listens for any rattling of pots or pans, breathing slightly heavier to see if she can catch a wisp of baking bread.

The ship creaks and rocks slightly harder. Stella frowns when she hears a splash behind her, outside the walls - they've anchored? Already at an island?But the sounds of bustling merchants or squawking of seagulls are absent.

No, they're not docked at an island, she's almost positive. So what are they stopping for? Above, she can make out muffled voices and the stamping of soled boots against wood - something was happening.

Her concentration is interrupted when Luffy stirs, shifting to his side, chains dragging slightly. "What's going on?" he suddenly rasps.

Stella raises her eyebrows in silent surprise. "You can hear that?"

He jerks his head down in a nod, eyeballs moving frantically under closed eyelids, up-ended ear twitching. "There's a fight - ah, not anymore."

She stares at him before squinting up at the ceiling, wishing she had x-ray powers and could see what was going on. Rookie rebellions were common at the beginning of someone's capture, but it was rare now to even find a senior slave muttering a mutinous phrase - it had all been beaten out of them. Stella's frown deepens. A fight now either meant someone was being purposely suicidal or-

Luffy opens his eyes just as the tension in the air shifts. The other slaves, though they hadn't made a sound, had grown quieter, as if they were all holding their breath.

There's a series of heavy thumps on the stairs, hidden from their view, before a grunt is heard.

"Luffy-kun," Stella whispers, caution in her tone as she watches the boy use his arm to slide his body across the floor and to the bars of their cell. He cranes his neck, ignoring the intensifying burn on his back, to see in the dim light a male figure rise from the floor.

Luffy narrows his eyes. There isn't enough light to distinguish features, but his gut tells him that the guard standing above the hunched figure is the same one that had hurt Stella.

The burly man reaches down to grab the new guy's hair then punches him straight across the room. He lands right in front of Luffy and Stella scrambles back until her back hits the wall.

Luffy doesn't move. He stares blankly at the young man with green hair, as the latter spits out blood from his mouth and pants, bleeding… everywhere. Finally, he notices Luffy. His eyes glance at the mark against the dark-haired boy's back and he grimaces.

"Heh. So that's what's gonna happen, huh?"

"Un," Luffy nods.

"Think I can fight 'em off?"

The guard advances, cracking his whip.

Luffy cocks his head. "You look strong."

His answering smirk seems wrong, misshapen. He wriggles his bent arms and Luffy's eyes glance down at the tight restraints wrapping around his wrists. "Not strong enough."

The leather whips against the bars before slashing across the new guy's white-shirted back. The guard roughly stands him up and Luffy's gaze trails the black boots as they move into a nearby cell, hears the cell doors clanging close before the guard turns around and thumps back upstairs.

Slowly, Luffy lowers his forehead to the ground. He scowls. The words echo in his head.

 _Not strong enough._

Now wasn't that always the problem?

* * *

He wakes up to a sharp, annoying pinch to his behind.

"Yaow!"

Another pinch sets him off, yelling and cursing up a storm that would make Makino give him that disappointing look she always got when he forgot to use his manners.

But seriously, what the hell-?!

He twists his naked torso on the sand to see the source of his rude awakening - a yellow grumpy crab, pincers snapped on his tender backside, apparently fed up that a human had been sleeping in his space.

The young man scowls before prying him loose - "let go, itai tai tai, ah that freaking hurts, baka crab!" - and flinging him angrily to the ocean.

He searches for his hat and spies its orange rim from a nearby sand dune. He walks over, swiping the sand off of the two smileys - one riht side up, the other right side up - before stuffing it onto his dark head and yawning loudly.

"Alright!" He declares. "Time to find my first crewmate!"

His eyes soften. "Looks like I'm on my way... Luffy, Sabo."

He looks around for a moment, takes in the calm seashell-covered shore and the line of thick forest beyond some craggy rocks. Pieces of wood are scattered along the beach and what looks to be a boat's oar is swishing gently in the tide. Then-

"Huh?" Ace cocks his head in confusion. "Where am I?"

* * *

 **End of Chapter 4**

* * *

 ** _Such a depressing chapter warrants a happier ending, so I thought, who better to brighten the ending than a well and alive Ace!_**

 ** _Now..._**

 ** _The bad news: Hurricane Irma is barreling straight for Florida._**

 ** _The good news (for you guys): I have plenty of time in this boring (but safe) shelter to write more. I won't promise anything though! That's what happened last chapter and I failed. I apologize profusely - blame the homework! XP_**

 ** _Goodnight, loves!_**

forgottensongs


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